Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“All my life I’ve wanted to see London. I wanted to see London the way old people want to see home before they die.”

The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street by Helene Hanff

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Next up, a lovely companion to 84, Charing Cross Road. It’s the early 1970s and Helene Hanff has finally made it across the pond to accomplish her dream trip to London, thanks to the success of the previous book. In this travelogue of her stay we’re treated to Hanff’s particular voice as she soaks in a place that has been calling to her for longer than the decades of her correspondence with Frank Doel.  In some ways I wasn’t sure what to expect with this one, […]

Three-Four-One

The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates

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Despite the backlash due to Coates’ writing and speeches on his time in Palestine, there are really three narratives in this travelogue. The Palestine one is the third one and it’s the one I’m going to spend as little time as possible on because I don’t want this page to be a forum on what’s happening there right now. I actually think the best essay here is the first one, where Coates finds himself in Dakar, Senegal. He has written at length about the rejection […]

Indonesia, Etc.

Indonesia, Etc. by Elisabeth Pisani

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Declaring independence in 1945, Indonesia said it would “work out the details of the transfer of power etc. as soon as possible.” With over 300 ethnic groups spread across over 13,500 islands, the world’s fourth most populous nation has been working on that “etc.” ever since. I bought this book in a charming London bookshop shortly after learning I would be moving to Timor-Leste.  There were no books about Timor, but there was this appealing book about Indonesia, written by Elizabeth Pisani, who also wrote […]

“You’ll probably find one of those, ‘I like art’-type girls”

A Paris All Your Own by Eleanor Brown

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Of all the cities in the world to visit, none is as pressure-filled as Paris (from my vantage point, at least). I’m heading there for a weekend and it’s been a decade since I last went so I picked up this collection of essays, promising “Bestselling Women Writers on the City of Light.” I love the concept of this and I have the NYC-equivalents on my TR list (Goodbye to All That & Can’t Say Goodbye). I didn’t necessarily expect a useful travelogue but I […]

A Road Trip with a Dog

Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck

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I read this due to my Steinbeck kick.  I was a little worried about reading it immediately after The Grapes of Wrath but it was the perfect antidote to my melancholy mood.  This is a travel journey by one of America’s preeminent authors who decided that that he no longer felt in touch with America and her people and wanted to find her again.  Discontented seems to best describe the way he felt with his life when he set off on his journey in 1960 […]

You Expect Me to Believe Everything You Say, Well, Okay

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I wasn’t planning to review any of these books. I’ve read them all so many times, and they are all hopelessly outdated, especially Neither Here Nor There and The Lost Continent. These are books that I read and adored when I was younger, that helped me dream about a world outside of the small town I grew up in, and that even led to an aborted solo road trip when I was 21. Reading them after many years away brought back sweet memories, but there’s […]



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